Mystery Rock Appeared In Front of Mars Rover, We Are Surprised, NASA Says

Now in another interesting development, according to media reports a mysterious rock which appeared in front of the Opportunity rover is "like nothing we've ever seen before", according to Mars exploration scientists at Nasa.

Experts said they were "completely confused" by both the origins and makeup of the object, which is currently being investigated by Opportunity's various measuring instruments.

Astronomers noticed that the new rock had "appeared" without any explanation on an outcrop which had been empty just days earlier. The rover has been stuck photographing the same region of Mars for more than a month due to bad weather, with scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California monitoring the images it sends.

He said the images, from 12 Martian days apart, were from no more than a couple of weeks ago. "We saw this rock just sitting here. It looks white around the edge in the middle and there's a low spot in the centre that's dark red - it looks like a jelly doughnut.

"And it appeared, just plain appeared at that spot - and we haven't ever driven over that spot."

Story got even stranger when Opportunity investigated further. Squyres explained: "We are as we speak situated with the rover's instruments deployed making measurements of this rock.

"We've taken pictures of both the doughnut and jelly parts, and the got the first data on the composition of the jelly yesterday.

It's like nothing we've ever seen before," he said. "It's very high in sulphur, it's very high in magnesium, it has got twice as much manganese as we've ever seen in anything on Mars.

"I don't know what any of this means. We're completely confused, and everyone in the team is arguing and fighting (over what it means).

"That's the beauty of this mission ... what I've realised is that we will never be finished. There will always be something tantalizing, something wonderful just beyond our reach that we didn't quite get to - and that's the nature of exploration."

Squyres was speaking at an event marking the 10th anniversary of the arrival of Opportunity and Spirit on the surface of Mars.

While Spirit lost contact with Earth and was later declared "dead" in 2010, Opportunity has now roamed the planet far in excess of what was originally planned as a three-month mission. Nasa said that with its maximum speed of just 0.05mph, as of "Sol 3547" (15 January 2014) Opportunity had covered just over 24 miles (38km).

Dude, that was poorly worded and absolutely pointless. A rock with chemicle compositions like that could have been thrown by a volcano or intense storm. I have had a skittle show up down a hall and in another room after dropping it from the couch. The law of big a$$ numbers.

Or, it could have been placed there intentionally, like a calling card to show that our presence has been noted. The intelligence that placed it there is sending a subtle, but undeniable signal of its existence.

The area left of the triangular rock now seems to have been disturbed--check out some later comparisons--to account for the "rock" being thrown from another place where rover ran. It does not look like a rock--more like a fungus. The depression directly underneath it says a lot. NASA now has a suit against it claiming the artifact is a fungal or lichenous growth. Suspect big cover up here since life found NASA and not the other way around.

if you look closely at the photo on the left, the shape of the rock is there already, this looks like the rock has arisen from the rock, maybe some sort of life form or plant that has grown or risen from the rock

If you look closely at both pictures you will see that they are not the same. Just another bs story. And by the way, if Nasa is really taking pictures of mars and the like, and something strange was spotted, do you really think it would be released to the public ???????? People are sooo stupid.